Searching
by AllegroAssai
Summary: Neither Snape or Harry are able to do what is expected of them. Response to the Easter Egg Challenge on HPFFA. Complete. Gen or Slash if you squint. Betaed by and dedicated to EmmaLou and KathrynK and for all the babywhisperers.


This was written for the Easter egg challenge on The Harry Potter Fanfiktion Archiv. I had to hunt, find and include the words: vampire, cauldron, room service, snoring and aura. Betaed by and dedicated to EmmaLou and KathrynK and all the babywhisperers.

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><p>„Shut your fucking mouth, Potter," Snape barked and pressed Harry against the cold wall behind him, his hand clinging to Harry's collar. Harry started wheezing, but instead of giving up, he snorted and spat right in Snape's face.<p>

"Coward," he whispered. The Potions Master let go of him rather unexpectedly and gave Harry a cold, deadly smile.

"That will not work either, Potter. But it was worth a try."

Harry sighed and rubbed his sore neck. Snape sat back down on his empty bed (if you could call that a bed, and you couldn't really), his glare directed at the weary young man who sat down on his own bed.

Both men looked at the tiny, barred window on top of the dingy wall when they heard the rain. A small branch clattered against the iron bar. Harry would have done many things in order to feel that lovely rain on his face.

The cell they were in was so tiny that the two men were never able to be more than a few feet apart. There was a lot of mould on the ceiling and Harry spent quite a bit of time interpreting the funny figure it created.

"Queen to e4," Harry said quietly and turned to the wall. He felt very weak. In the last two months he'd tried to kill himself around thirty times, that was at least once every second day. The prophecy was pretty clear about this. …_neither can live while the other survives…_

Dumbledore was the first one to see the connection; he knew Harry had to sacrifice his own life in order to end Voldemort's. And more importantly than that, he knew Harry _would_.

The old wizard (or his one-dimensional painted remains who now failed to understand the complexity of the situation) and Voldemort actually agreed on this, so irony would have it, that Voldemort was now responsible for keeping Harry Potter alive (if you could call that alive, and really, you couldn't). But the Dark Lord was more intelligent than Dumbledore had assumed and Severus Snape was less able to send Harry Potter to his death than he had hoped.

Voldemort had found out rather quickly and violently that Snape did care about the boy and also why he did so, which led him to the wonderful plan of putting Snape in charge of keeping Potter alive. And so far, it had worked.

After starving himself for two days, Snape force fed chicken soup to Harry who would vomit on his shirt several times, over and over again, but the bitter, dark man was stronger, and in the end Harry had given up.

Just to try something else. To aspirate a sausage and suffocate. Hang himself. Hit his head on the wall very hard. And now he'd tried to persuade Snape to kill him, and that hadn't worked either.

Harry had to sit down when his right hand started shaking uncontrollably. He suddenly felt as if his head would burst and he had to hold it together to keep it from exploding. Then everything went black.

When he woke up, it was almost dark and quite a bit colder. He shivered and sat up. There was a big dark patch in his crotch. It was wet.

"How long did it last this time?" he asked and stood up. During the last seizure, his bones seemed to have got heavier, he was so damn tired.

"Longer than usual," was the snippy answer. "Get changed." Snape never turned away when Harry got changed, he never took his eyes off him for a second, but Harry didn't mind any more. He kept searching for a warmer jumper, but it seemed hopeless.

"Have you got something warmer by any chance?" he asked.

"Ask the room service, Potter."

Harry rolled his eyes. Maybe he'd get pneumonia? When he was done, he turned around to the man he'd shared a cell with for 60 days now (but who was counting) that was only slightly smaller and less inviting than Dudley's second bedroom.

Snape sat, as usual, on his bed, one leg stretched out, one pulled up. The formerly impressive man was now surrounded by an aura of absolute hopelessness. He was so clinically depressed that Harry thought (hoped, yes hoped) that he wouldn't be able to look after him for much longer.

It was almost night-time. From the corner of the room Harry could make out the smell of fresh vomit, but Harry wasn't the one with the delicate stomach. He reckoned that the headaches and seizures were a sure sign of the Horcrux in his head getting stronger.

"Was it very bad? I can never remember."

Snape didn't answer, but instead stared at a particularly interesting shape of mildew in front of him. He could sit like that for hours and hours without saying anything.

"Snape? It's your turn."

"Hmmm." He didn't sound very motivated. "Castle to G1."

Harry thought, imagined the chess board and then pouted. Maybe Snape did come out of one of his moods just now.

"Yes, Potter. Checkmate."

The sour smell also stuck to Snape's sleeve as the man got up. It looked as if it was as difficult for him as it was for Harry to just move around. As usual, Harry held his breath when he saw the man's back. It was a map of violence, most of the scars seemed to be there before Snape had stopped growing. Harry never asked about them, there was nothing to say, really, it was that obvious. There were long, deep lacerations, small, buckle shaped cuts and some burn marks. Some newer ones were on top of older ones. Harry's back didn't look anywhere near as bad (or so he hoped, he never looked at it, never thought about it much); he too had kept some remains from the Dursley family.

Snape never asked about him, either, but the first time he'd seen his back he hadn't eaten his thin soup for the rest of the day.

Two months ago they'd still tried to escape, they planned things and tried to come up with solutions, but they didn't get anywhere. It was hopeless.

The guy who brought the food and emptied that terrible bucket was a Squib, he didn't even have a wand on him. When he came in, he always looked so arrogant that Harry had to tease him.

"This is the smallest amount of power that ever went to someone's head," he'd said a few days ago and since then the soups were even thinner and the bucket didn't get emptied every day any more. But Harry truly did not mind.

"Oi, Snape!" the man turned his greasy head to him, very slowly. His eyes were even deeper in their sockets than usual, his cheekbones more pronounced.

"Don't you think we should end this now? I don't think Lily would have wanted this…" There it was again, Snape's weakest point. But this time, his reaction was less explosive, yet another sign for his decline.

"Lily…" he caressed the name in his mouth as if it was a sweetie, he always did, „gave her life for you. Knowing that her only son is giving up would break her."

Harry started to get angry. This logic was wrong, Snape had it all wrong.

"I am not giving up. Voldemort is out there and somehow…" Harry studied his hands, as if there was something very interesting going on there, „somehow I feel responsible for every one of his victims. I have the power to kill him and I don't, I am also the last Horcrux and…"

"Shut up, Potter. You don't have to take the blame for anything, you try almost every day."

Harry sat up. "What, do you want to take the responsibility for all those people? _You_ are the one who doesn't let me die."

Snape shrugged as if he truly didn't care and Harry felt really irritated.

"Coward," he said quietly and waited for the reaction, but even that was relatively mild.

"Why are you so allergic to that word?" he asked, his voice full of mockery. "Perhaps you should start therapy." For a small moment, Harry's mood was strangely elated and it wasn't his own emotion. Something was pleasing Voldemort. Harry shook his head a little.

"My mother had a profound influence on me," Snape said, quite uncharacteristically.

"Really?"

"Yes. She was a lunatic."

Harry didn't know if he should laugh or cry.

"Did she give you those scars?"

"None of your business, Potter."

"Harry."

"Hmmm."

Then Snape was back in one of his darker mood spells. On good days like today (if you could call that a good day and you couldn't really) he spoke, ate and moved a little. On bad days, he sat on his bed unmoving, just staring and not answering any of Harry's many questions. The one cauldron-shaped mildew got his attention especially.

At least Snape wasn't 'questioned' every day any more, Voldemort had finally accepted that Dumbledore had never trusted Snape 100% and the Order hadn't made him Secret Keeper for anything important at all.

The little branch now hammered crazily against the iron bar, the lack of rhythm annoyed Harry and reminded him of the noise a dripping tap would make.

Both men's hair was longer than ever, unwashed and oily. Harry looked like a starving street kid, his glasses were pear-shaped and scratched and as for Snape… he couldn't even find a comparison.

The little hatch on the door opened with a high screech, both men winced slightly. Two metal bowls with very thin oily soup that smelled somehow off were on today's menu.

Harry stood up, his knee gave a small cracking sound, probably from lack of use.

He handed Snape his soup and sat down on his bed. When he smelt the rotten smell, he suddenly had to think about Hogwarts, the feasts and the hundreds of bowls with delicious food. The laughter and Dumbledore and Ron and Hermione. Luna and Ginny and Neville… Quidditch and Hagrid's awful biscuits.

Suddenly he threw the soup against the wall, the sound was almost deafening, and burst out crying. They were the bitterest tears of his life, they brought no relief, didn't make it any easier to continue.

So he wiped his face, blew his nose on his sleeve and felt the black glare on him. He forced himself to not be embarrassed or angry or anything, really and didn't avoid the eye contact.

Snape handed over his own soup, but Harry declined with a disgusted look on his face.

"I cannot do this any more," he confessed.

"Pull yourself together, Potter."

"Harry."

"Hmmm."

Then Harry leaned back and unconsciously took the same position as the man next to him.

For perhaps the thousandth time in the past few weeks he asked himself where he could take the strength to continue, and remembered that aunt Petunia used to go to Church all the time.

"Do you believe in God? And Jesus and so forth?"

"No."

"Why not?"

Snape took a deep breath and sneered. For a moment he seemed to ask himself if Harry Potter was worth the answer. When Harry had given up waiting, the answer did come after all.

"My father was – is a devout Catholic. He always tried to save my soul and thought my mother and I were evil. So one day I told him I'd grown out of invisible friends years ago and if God wanted me to believe in him, then he would have existed."

Harry laughed out loud, it felt strange.

"What did he say to that?"

Snape massaged the large scar on his shoulder, probably without being aware of it.

"Oh. Well, it was very brave of you."

Harry felt a little disillusioned and was just about to say something when another seizure knocked him unconscious.

When he woke up it was night-time. Harry's hands were tied to his bed like always when Snape slept (if you wanted to call the things Snape did at night sleeping, which you couldn't really). He inclined his head a little and could see a bit of the moon.

Then he looked at Snape who'd obviously fallen asleep sitting up. His hair hung limply down his face which was buried in his arms. Harry waited for the familiar light snore, but it never came, instead Harry heard a noise that was entirely unfamiliar. Deep, ragged breaths, a snort and a choked sob.

Harry still had a thumping headache and felt utterly miserable, but he couldn't stop watching either.

Then he heard him cursing. A whispered chain of swear words definitely worthy of a Death Eater echoed through the room.

His voice was so full of hatred against himself that it was scary, almost surreal.

Harry's throat was suddenly very dry as if made of sandpaper.

Then, a few moments later and without any warning, Snape smashed the back of his head against the wall behind him.

"Hey!" Harry shouted. "Snape!"

The man suddenly froze and looked as if he was just caught stealing.

"Please untie my arms, it's numb."

The panic that rose in Harry's chest was so cold, so big that he would have lost his mind if he'd tried to face it, so he swallowed it down.

"Please… Snape. I can't feel my arm."

Snape stood up slowly and opened the ties then he bent Harry's head backwards (none too gently either) and told him to look in the moonlight.

"Are my eyes red?" Harry whispered brokenly, he wanted to weep.

"No, Potter. But the pupils don't have the same size."

Harry bit his lip. He didn't know what that meant.

"It means that the Horcrux is acting like a mass. A lesion." His tone was back to being educational and instructive and somehow that calmed Harry.

"It's a bad sign, right? And the hand, too." Harry tried to wriggle his fingers, but they were slow and it felt as if the hand didn't belong to him.

Mass. Lesion. Tumour.

Harry closed his eyes. He longed for one of Hermione's hugs, so much that it almost hurt. She was always so ready to give them out and Harry hadn't appreciated that until now. If he ever would get out of here, he'd tell her. If she was still alive.

He tried to stand up, but would have almost fallen if it wasn't for the tall man's helping hand.

Harry grabbed it, ignored the resistance entirely and thin hands clung to bony shoulder blades, long fingers to greasy hair It didn't matter. Harry hadn't felt so human, so alive for quite a few weeks.

Lesion. Mass. Tumour.

Harry let go of Snape, drank some of that disgusting soup and offered the rest to Snape who did the same.

"I have a plan," Harry said, his voice hopeful, but already slurring a little. His tone forbid any form of sarcasm or mockery Snape didn't try, but instead sat back down to listen.

"A boy in our neighbourhood had a brain tumour. He had chemotherapy and radiation and then an operation. Aunt Petunia knew everything about this, she loved gossip, she tried to 'help' a lot. Anyway, chemotherapy is poison, it destroys all cells, but the sick ones more and radiation kills the cells, too. So I thought, if we manage to escape, or maybe people are trying to look for us…"

"For you, anyway…"

"Yes, well. Maybe we could try and simulate this. You make a potion with a tiny bit of basilisk venom in it, that will be bad for me, but not kill me, but it will kill the horcrux. And make a fiendfyre, I'll sit in front of it. What do you think?"

He didn't realise that he was chewing his lip and wringing his hands like a nervous wreck. Since when was Snape's opinion important to him anyway?

"Snape?"

„Severus. Congratulations, Potter, you do have a brain."

"Harry."

"Hmmm. I've been thinking about this branch up there…" Harry looked up and made a hand gesture for Snape to continue. „It's oak. And I have kept this…" He showed Harry a very sharp bit of metal that he'd probably hidden. „I think I may be able to make a wand with this branch and one of your hairs. Just powerful enough to get out of here. Every time you have a seizure, the Dark Lord has one, too and a Death Eater comes in here to check on you. I think it's possible…"

"Brilliant!" Harry exclaimed. "That is awesome, Severus! But why one of my hairs, why not yours, you surely have vampire blood in you."

"Dementor, actually."

"Honestly?" Harry asked, he'd always suspected that.

"Of course not, you dunderhead."

They walked over to the window (if you could call one and a half steps walking, which you couldn't really) but then they heard familiar steps approaching the small cell.

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><p>Reviews are love.<p> 


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